An example of titles in mainstream cinema for children and families in 2011 to date:

Rio, Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs Evil, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung FU Panda 2, Mr Poppers Penguins, Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Mon, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Spy Kids4: All the Time in the World.

With a few exceptions,  A Turtle’s Tale, Arietty,  Horrid Henry and Harry Potter, most of the film diet offered to the young public of the UK is from America espousing American cultural values; either directly or indirectly.

But what about other brilliant family films not made in English and not made in the U.S? There are a wealth of films which offer an insight into worlds vastly different to our own but which have universal  themes and emotions with which young people can identify.

Many people are put off  by the thought of reading subtitles, but everyone can ‘read’ a film and in many cases, after having watched a Foreign Language film,  groups of young people have been enthusiastic and surprised at the quality of the experience.

Britain is being subsumed by formulaic and in some cases, trite product. We are doing our young people a disservice by ignoring the film treasures available from around the world.

Linked to this cultural swamping from America, politicians, educationalists and businesses in the UK are expressing concern over the decline in the study of foreign languages in schools.

• In the past decade, the UK plunged from mid-table to joint-bottom of major rankings listing the number of languages learned in each country
• There has been a decline of 45% over the past 10 years of pupils gaining a GCSE in a foreign language.
• ‘Languages are key to our economic and social future: without them we risk insularity and we narrow the job opportunities to young people educated here.’ (Nick Gibb, Schools Minister 2011)

In light of the points above, but more specifically to give young people an opportunity to watch film from other countries, the project aims to establish a solid base on which to develop audiences for World Cinema.  The 4 core areas identified in Yorkshire are: the Civic in Barnsley; Victoria Hall in Settle, Junction in Goole and the Picture House in Hebden Bridge. Each of these has a venue to offer screenings and can be a hub for the surrounding educational establishments and communities.

Initially, the screenings will be aimed at introducing primary school pupils to a range of world cinema including films from France, Spain and India. Each screening will be introduced and there will be a resource pack for teachers with ideas on developing work around the film. The project is also working with National Schools Film Week, and will co-ordinate a foreign language film title to be included as part of this national event in two of the venues.

There will be free Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers during the autumn term, which offers an insight into the creative use of world cinema across the curriculum and more specifically for enhancing the teaching of languages.

During the project, there is a day for teachers and practitioners of film and language at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield on Saturday 3 December. The day will focus on learning how Foreign Language film can be used in education as well as looking at the debate around the lack of good available product.

FREE CPD  Foreign Language Film in the school curriculum

There will be two twilight sessions at your local venue in order to sample extracts from a range of foreign language films: one aimed at primary schools and one aimed at secondary schools. The event will offer an insight into how film can be used creatively across the curriculum as well focusing on how it can be used to enhance teaching foreign languages.

The event will be hosted at your local venue and will be led by the project leader Geraldine Walker.